Wall Street Journal: Malloy “Doesn’t Have a Clue.”

Monday’s Wall Street Journal distilled into a few lethal sentences the choice facing Connecticut voters on Tuesday. The editorial featured this:

Take Connecticut’s Dannel Malloy, who rode into office by less than one percentage point in 2010 after promising not to raise taxes but soon was calling himself the “anti-Christie,” a reference to the Republican Governor in nearby New Jersey. He’s lived up to his self-billing, as Hartford pushed through 77 separate tax hikes that comprised the largest increase in state history.

The average Connecticut household now pays taxes of $11,639, or one of six dollars of earnings and a jump of $2,839 over 2010. The state and local tax burden per capita is the country’s third highest, after New York and Maryland, according to the Tax Foundation, which also ranks the state 42nd on its 2014 business tax climate index.

Connecticut’s economic growth rate in the Malloy era: minus-0.9% in 2011, 1% in 2012, and 0.9% in 2013, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Mr. Malloy is in a tight race with GOP businessman Tom Foley, who favors tax reform after a “comprehensive review” to make Connecticut more attractive for business investment and reduce the cost of living. When Mr. Malloy was asked at a recent forum how Connecticut could make housing cheaper for the shrinking middle class, he replied that “I don’t have a magic wand.” It’s more accurate to say he doesn’t have a clue.